


From a little spark

by thisprettywren



Series: Ingenium [1]
Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Gen, Reichenbach Falls
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-04-25
Updated: 2011-04-25
Packaged: 2017-10-18 15:37:10
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,125
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/190391
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thisprettywren/pseuds/thisprettywren
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sherlock’s world, at that moment, was quite small indeed: a small, white hospital room, a small bed, a small screen that held the rest of it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	From a little spark

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Morgan_Stuart](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Morgan_Stuart/gifts).



> Written for Morgan_Stuart's [Auction to help Christchurch, NZ](http://help-nz.livejournal.com/) bid.
> 
> Thanks to [gelishan](gelishan.livejournal.com) and [misanthropyray](misanthropyray.livejournal.com) for being fantastic and patient betas, and to [Ivy Blossom](ivyblossom.livejournal.com) for much moral support.
> 
> The first of a planned series of three stories.
> 
> Title credit goes to Dante Alighieri, though I suspect he wouldn't want it.

 

 

Sherlock heard the words with a dizzying sensation of vertigo. Thought: _There’s something I’m missing_ , though his brother was nothing if not precise.

His head hurt, badly enough that it momentarily eclipsed the burns, the cracked bones in his ribcage and arm.

“Say that again,” he demanded, eyes narrowed against the glare of the fluorescent lights overhead.

“John’s gone,” Mycroft said again, slowly, his willingness to repeat himself a concession to their surroundings: the beep of the heart monitor, the tubes running from the IV pole to the back of Sherlock’s hand. “We’ve lost him. In the confusion, I’m afraid. He was conscious when he got into the ambulance, but—“

Sherlock blinked at him. “He’s dead.” He hated to state the obvious, but it seemed he needed to hear the words themselves. They floated past his lips, unsupported by any sense of conviction, buoyed by his own sense of unreality.

“No, not at all,” Mycroft said, and whatever came next was lost to a flush of relief replaced almost immediately by anger as he finally grasped what Mycroft had been trying to tell him.

“You’ve. You’ve _lost_ him,” Sherlock said finally, understanding, and he heard Mycroft give a small, exasperated sigh.

“Yes, of course. That’s what I’ve been—“

On the other side of the room, in the pocket of his charred jacket, the pink phone chimed.

 

* * *

 

It wasn’t until he swam back up to consciousness in 221b Baker Street that Lestrade realised something had gone rather extravagantly pear-shaped.

Not that the whole evening hadn’t been a mess from start to finish. When the call came in about an explosion at a public swimming pool, Lestrade’s first thought had been that Sherlock bloody Holmes had been hiding something from him. This instinct had, he was sorry to say, proved to be quite correct, though not in the way he had first supposed: he’d initially been worried that it was another civilian casualty, another bystander caught up in the insane game playing out between the blasted idiot and the bomber.

By the time he’d arrived on the scene he’d been informed that, no, the only victims present were Sherlock and John—something about a blog posting, and Lestrade wondered how many more years he could keep this up before his wry cracks about the effect that man had on his blood pressure stopped being jokes—but he was still somehow unprepared for the sight that greeted him.

There was already an ambulance on site and he could hear the distant siren of another. He’d been at the scene of quite a few explosions over the last few days but the pile of pulverised tile and concrete and twisted metal still made him stop short.

“Jesus,” he breathed. It was the arbitrary nature of the destruction that got to him, the way a bomb could leave three walls standing and completely obliterate the fourth. As if to prove his point, a bit more of the edge of the ceiling crumbled, falling heavily to the floor.

“Everyone out of here,” he called. He spotted John sitting against what was left of an interior wall a few dozen yards away, his left hand pressed against his right shoulder. It took most of the time Lestrade needed to jog over to his side to realise that what he was seeing on John’s jumper was blood.

“Sherlock?” he asked.

John tipped his head to the left. “A bit worse off than I am,” he said. “They’re loading him in now.” Lestrade followed his gaze to see that two paramedics were indeed lifting a gurney into the back of the waiting ambulance. “I didn’t get to examine him properly,” John went on, sounding tired, “but a bit of the wall came down on him, knocked him out. Burns, too. He got the worst of it.”

Lestrade nodded. The paramedics were just closing the doors on the ambulance as the second one drove up, stopping just on the far side of what would have been the building’s west-facing wall. “Can you walk?”

“Give me a hand up and I’ll manage fine,” John said, with a wry twist of his mouth. “Just some debris in my shoulder. A few stitches and it’ll be good as new.”

It looked like more than that to Lestrade but he wasn’t about to argue, not with the building still crumbling around them. He helped John over to the second ambulance, where the paramedics were just getting the back doors open.

“I’ll meet you at the hospital,” he told John, “take your statement there.” He really ought to have stayed to process the scene, but he wasn’t the only DI on duty that night, and what he really wanted was to know just what had happened. Never mind that it was _his_ consultant who’d been involved, and he’d always felt an odd protectiveness toward the man, not to mention the doctor who’d somehow got swept up in his wake.

“Why don’t you ride along,” the paramedic suggested. “You can sit in the back with him. The roads are a madhouse tonight, it’ll be easier than trying to follow.” He stuck out his hand. “I’m Thomas, by the way.”

Couldn’t hurt, he supposed. “Lestrade,” he said with a half-hearted shake, not really caring for the formalities. “Give me a minute,” he said, and jogged over to inform the other DI. By the time he finished issuing instructions and made it back John was already settled in the back of the ambulance, seated on the low gurney, a temporary bandage wrapping his shoulder.

“Here,” Thomas said to John, drawing his intact sleeve up to his elbow and swabbing it with an alcohol-soaked pad. “This’ll help with the pain, ’til we can get you properly sorted at A&E.” He pulled a syringe from his kit.

“Thanks.” Before John even finished getting the word out, he hissed in surprise as the needle slid into his arm. Lestrade winced sympathetically.

“There we go, then,” Thomas said, and there was an odd pause during which Lestrade had the sense that they were all waiting for something. Then John gave a strangled-sounding cough and tipped over onto the cot.

“What—“ he began, just as he felt the point of a needle pressing into his neck.

“Off we go, then,” Thomas said cheerfully as Lestrade’s vision started to go fuzzy, and it was the last thing he remembered before slipping into unconsciousness.

 

* * *

 

Hearing always came back first. Came back, in fact, before the ability to make sense of the sounds themselves, scraping and banging and unintelligible voices.

Everything hurt. A lot, actually. Bloody hell, what _was_ —

John gave up the comforting darkness and opened his eyes. _That’s our wallpaper_ , he thought dully, not really awake enough yet to be appropriately surprised. It was altogether too close to his nose, and his head ached (not _just_ from the wallpaper, he was pretty sure, but it certainly wasn’t helping). He tried to move away from it and found himself hindered, brought up short by a sharp pain in his shoulder and—

Handcuffs. Or one, rather, biting into his left wrist. Of bloody course.

He groaned and went with the first explanation that presented itself to him. “Sherlock!”

There was a noise very like a chuckle from behind him, a hand on his hip. It took John a moment to recognise Lestrade’s voice, either because it was so unexpected or because it seemed to be having some difficulty making it out of his throat. “Not here. And this one might not actually be his fault.”

“Hmph,” he breathed, a skeptical snort along the length of his nose. In his experience these things tended to come back around to his flatmate, one way or another.

It was cold in the room, the windows still missing their blown-in glass. Large dark bin liners were tacked up in its place, doing little to keep out the chill. John noted this information almost impassively, that odd sense of calm settling over him while he struggled to turn up the information he knew was _just there_ , right under the surface layer of his consciousness.

The glass. Blown out by the gas leak that wasn’t, he remembered that, and— oh. _Oh_.

 _Well, that explained why everything hurt so bloody much, at least._

“We appear,” he said over his shoulder, trying to work out how to get himself a bit more upright without jarring anything that really didn’t want to be jarred just then, “not to have made it to the hospital.”

“That we haven’t.”

The other end of the handcuffs were attached to heavy fireplace grate. It gave him very little leverage but at least let him use his good arm to push against the ground a bit while Lestrade helped him manoeuvre himself into a sitting position.

The room was spinning. John turned so that his back was to the wall, shut his eyes and leaned the back of his head against the wallpaper. “This is starting to get old,” he said to himself, and Lestrade laughed, a tense chuckle deep in his chest.

John forced his eyes open and managed to keep them that way while the room settled around him. Lestrade was crouched in front of him, and it took John a moment to process what he was seeing in his face: lines of tension around his eyes, a darkened patch over one cheekbone that was already beginning to bruise, a sticky bit of dried blood in his hair.

What Lestrade _wasn’t_ doing was reaching for his keyring to unlock the cuff on John’s wrist.

“You are… not actually the arrival of the cavalry, then,” John said, trying not to sound as defeated as he felt.

“Afraid not,” Lestrade said apologetically. “I’ve got a bit of time to do what I can about your shoulder, though. That was the deal. Do you have supplies?”

John blinked, reaching for the first of several questions he’d have liked answered. “The, ah. The deal?”

The area around Lestrade’s mouth grew tight. “This place is wired to go up. Another bloody bomb. I agreed to stay if he let your landlady go, and if he gave me time to tend to that.” Lestrade indicated the mess of half-askew bandage on John’s shoulder. “So let’s not waste it, yeah? Supplies.”

“Under the sink.” He watched Lestrade stand stiffly, begin to move away. “You all right?”

“I’ll do,” came the terse reply.

“So who—“ John began, but stopped himself at the expression on Lestrade’s face as he came back into view, carrying John’s emergency kit.

“Long story,” Lestrade said, sitting heavily in front of John and opening the bag. “Old grudge. “

“Against you.” It wasn’t a question, and Lestrade didn’t answer, just let the words hang in the air between them.

 _Dinner with Sarah,_ John thought, _that’s all I wanted from this evening_. He was getting bloody tired of being the pawn in everyone else’s revenge scheme. His shoulder ached and he could feel his burns starting to blister. They were minor, all told, but _still._ Bombs and hostage situations and—

He felt a wave of frustration wash over him and pulled hard against the cuff on his left hand. Useless: left hand trapped by the cuff, right all but worthless because of the mess in his shoulder.

Lestrade was looking at him expectantly. John sighed inwardly and forced his attention back to the matter at hand. Might as well get on with it. “Gloves, disinfectant. There are some— they’ll look a bit like large tweezers. There’s still some debris in there.” He’d almost said _shrapnel_ , John realised with a dizzy rush. Bloody hell. He took a deep breath, steadying himself. “Butterfly bandages.”

“Nothing for the pain?” Lestrade asked, and John shook his head.

“I’m out of the local. Meant to get more.” He swallowed, trying to work some moisture into his suddenly-dry mouth. “There’s some knock-out stuff, but….” He shrugged his good shoulder. Lestrade nodded and began to rummage around in the bag. He laid out the necessary items and John tried to focus on them, on his breathing. “What does he _want_?” he asked, finally, the question slipping over his teeth before he could tamp it back down.

Lestrade’s hand stilled, his eyes darting sharply away. “I don’t know. Not exactly.”

“You can— you should go. You can _go_.” John could hear the urgency in his own voice. _Run_ , he thought, but couldn’t say it like that, not again, not so soon.

There was a long pause during which John thought he might be considering it, but Lestrade just huffed a breath out his nose and resumed his work, pulling aside what was left of the bandage on John’s shoulder. “Don’t be stupid,” he said, when he’d unstuck the last bits of lint and cloth. “Now walk me through it, yeah? I’m going to need you to tell me what to do.”

 

* * *

 

 

While he worked, Lestrade filled John in on what he knew about the situation. “It took me a while to place him,” Lestrade admitted. “I was the lead on his brother’s case—robbery with GBH, open-and-shut conviction. I remember him from the trial.” His mouth twisted. “He died in prison a few months later, I think.”

“Died?”

“Was killed, then. Nasty business.”

John had to agree. “And now it’s— what, exactly?”

Lestrade shrugged and tightened his grip on John’s upper arm, holding him steady. “This bit’s in here deep. I don’t know what his connection is to the latest string of—hold _still_ , damn you. It might be unrelated, but with another bomb… well, hard to be sure. He hasn’t made any demands that I’ve heard. It might just be… well, retaliation. For his brother, do you see?”

John nodded, gritting his teeth against the pain, clenching his other hand against the floor. “So, Sherlock…?”

Lestrade shrugged. “Don’t know. Hasn’t mentioned him; my hope is he made it safe to hospital.”

Small consolation, but John supposed it was something.

“He’ll sort it out for us,” he said, trying not to think about the condition his flatmate had been in when last he’d seen him.

Lestrade chuckled. “My boys’ll be working on it, too. I wouldn’t want to be in this bloke’s shoes when Donovan gets hold of him.”

 

* * *

 

Mycroft moved with infuriating slowness, retrieving the phone and holding it out to Sherlock with a twist of his lip that belied his reluctance.

He didn’t actually argue, though. Sherlock supposed that was something. He snatched the phone away impatiently with his good arm, eyes on the cracked screen.

A text message. An image of the front door of Baker Street, and the words, _You’re going to want to watch this._

 _  
_

* * *

 

John was exhausted, skin damp with sweat, still shaking from the exertion of holding himself still. Lestrade had managed to get the worst of the debris out, though, in the end. John thought it might actually be everything, but there was no way to be entirely sure of that without an x-ray.

There was a small pile of the stuff on the carpet by John’s knee, bits of twisted metal from the lockers, flakes of ceramic tile. They were both carefully avoiding looking at it directly.

Lestrade was almost done with the bandaging when they heard the front door open and slam shut, heavy feet on the stairs. His eyes slid to John’s, and the tension in his face wasn’t exactly reassuring. There was a smear of John’s blood on the side of his jaw.

“Right, here we go,” he said quietly, and John gave him something he hoped looked more like a smile than it felt.

“Step away from him, _Detective Inspector_ ,” came an unfamiliar voice as soon as the door to the flat swung open. When Lestrade stepped back John recognised the paramedic from the ambulance: a sandy-haired man in his late twenties or early thirties, still dressed in his uniform, otherwise fairly nondescript. Not someone who would stand out in a crowd, John thought, on appearance alone, though the pistol in his hand might help with that.

Well, only the three of them there, so hardly a crowd in any case.

“Come here,” the man ( _Thomas_ , John remembered) said to Lestrade, indicating one of the kitchen chairs. “Sit.”

“Proof she’s safe away, first,” Lestrade countered, his voice cool.

Thomas sighed irritably and dug a mobile out of his pocket. “Fine.” He turned on the speaker, and John heard Donovan’s voice answer on the second ring.

“The landlady’s safe with you?” Lestrade bit off the ends of the words tersely.

“She is,” Donovan answered. “She says there’s a bomb, do you—“

“Yes,” Lestrade broke in. “The whole building’s wired. Get the civilians off the street and don’t do anything stupid.”

“Sir, are you—“

Her voice was cut off as Thomas disconnected the call and slipped the mobile back into the front pocket of his trousers. “See,” he said in a parody of a reasonable tone, “I’m a man of my word. Let’s see if you’re a man of yours.”

Lestrade shot John an unreadable look and moved to the kitchen, where he sat heavily into the chair.

“You don’t actually have to do this, Thomas,” Lestrade began, and John could hear the carefully-controlled neutrality in his tone. “You can still—“

He was cut off as the other man brought the butt of the gun down above his ear, hard enough that John could hear the crack of the impact. Lestrade gave a choked moan and slumped forward, not quite losing consciousness.

John heard himself shouting, and it took him a moment to realise he was tugging against the cuff hard enough that he’d have bruises. Useless, of course; he closed his mouth with an effort, tried to relax his clenched muscles.

“You bloody stupid sod, my name’s _Sebastian_ ,” the man was saying in Lestrade’s ear, using cable ties to secure Lestrade’s wrists to the arms of the chair. “Thomas was my brother.”

He gave Lestrade an open-handed slap on the side of the head, eliciting a low moan, and moved over to crouch on the floor in front of John. “Looks like he got you all fixed up, doctor,” he sneered. “Good enough, anyway.” He reached into his pocket and pulled out a small plastic cube, which he placed in John’s cuffed left hand, curling his fingers tightly around it. “I hope you’re doing better than you look. You’re going to want to hold onto this.”

John felt the corners of his mouth grow tight, a sick feeling rising in the pit of his stomach. He refused to look at his hand, keeping his eyes on Sebastian’s face. “What’s that, then,” he said, his voice low.

Sebastian smirked. “Deadman’s switch,” he said. “You just keep pressing that button on the top there, and things around here stay nice and quiet. You let it go, though….” He trailed off with a shrug. “Well. Things are going to get rather explosive, rather quickly. Lots of sleeping folk about, this time of night. It takes time to get them all out of their beds; so hard to know you’ve got them all, isn’t it? What’s the army’s stance on civilian casualties these days?”

John pressed his lips together, didn’t speak. His mouth was so dry he wasn’t sure he could have, even had he trusted himself enough in that moment to try it.

Sebastian regarded him for a long moment, then put a hand on his head and ruffled his hair. “You just sit tight, then, and think about that one, there’s a good little soldier.” He flashed John a nasty grin and stood, moving back over to where Lestrade was sitting, slumped dazedly into the chair. John could see the dark stain of blood dripping down onto his collar.

“Right, then, _Greg,_ ” he said, and John saw Lestrade’s mouth twitch at the use of his first name, though his eyes didn’t open, “you and me, we have some unfinished business to discuss.”

 

* * *

 

The feed wasn’t the clearest, made less-so by the degraded quality of the screen.

Sherlock couldn’t tear his eyes away.

“They’re at the flat,” he said to Mycroft, incredulous. “They’re at _Baker Street_.” It made something squirm uncomfortably in his stomach, made the muscles of his hand jump in agitation.

The camera kept alternating between the living room (John visible in the corner; the camera angle obviously fixed prior to their arrival) and the kitchen, showing Lestrade and an unidentified man. There was audio, too, tinny, distant-sounding voices coming through the phone’s speaker.

This was wrong, all wrong; John had been caught in the blast, too, _he couldn’t be_ — but Sherlock didn’t have time for _couldn’t be_. His impulse was to jump out of the bed and go tearing down the corridor, but his fractured bones and the raw patches of burned skin made that sort of thing easier said than done.

Still, though.

When he glanced up, Mycroft was watching his face. “Don’t even try it, little brother,” Mycroft said with that air of reserved menace Sherlock had always hated. “Don’t make me stop you.”

“You can’t—“ he began, but the figures on the screen were speaking, and Sherlock fell silent in order to listen.

 _There's a good little soldier_ , he heard, and there was a wave of pain as his muscles tightened in reflexive anger.

“Tell me about him,” he demanded, his voice low and dangerous-sounding even to his own ears.

“Sebastian Moran,” Mycroft supplied immediately, “aged 31. No record of his own. It appears he might be acting in retribution for the death of his brother, who was killed in prison sixteen months ago. Your DI was instrumental in his conviction.”

“And the connection to Moriarty,” Sherlock prompted.

Mycroft shrugged, his lips twisting. “Our intelligence hasn’t turned up any evidence of one, prior to this. It appears that your Moriarty may have been instrumental in helping him. Providing the necessary resources for the abduction, and in… wiring the flat.” Sherlock stared at him. “Yes, it appears we’re dealing with another bomb.”

Sherlock felt his hand clench around the phone, and he nearly dropped it. His right arm was secured close against his bruised and cracked ribs, hairline fractures in his ulna and radius; he tightened the muscles ruthlessly, hissing at the the sharp pain, using it to focus his attention.

“Your intelligence,” he said, when he’d gathered himself again sufficiently to speak. “What information has it gathered on how to. Well. There must be _demands_ , or some way to—“

Mycroft shook his head. “Not that we’ve come across. Rest assured, we are still investigating.”

The game wasn’t over, then.

“Rest assured,” Sherlock muttered, turning his attention back to the screen.

If they were still playing, that meant there was a way to win. He just had to find it.

 

* * *

 

“Do you know how he died?”

Lestrade couldn’t be bothered to answer, being rather preoccupied with keeping his eyes closed. He had the strong suspicion that, were he to open them, the way the room was spinning would result in the contents of his stomach no longer being _in_ his stomach, and he really didn’t need—

There was another bright flare of pain, this time in his ribs, and he heard rather than felt his own harsh gasp of surprise at the impact. He coughed, a reflexive spasm of the muscle that rattled his aching head and generally failed to improve matters.

“Of course you don’t.” It came out as a sneer, and it took a conscious effort for Lestrade to place the voice, his head still a bit muddled from the impact of the pistol.

 _Thomas was my brother_ , his brain supplied, and it sparked his memory _just enough_. The Moran trial; he’d had to testify in two hearings that day, and his mind was already onto the next when he stepped down from the witness stand, but he could remember the face of the defendant’s younger brother, eyes bright with angry tears.

“But that’s all really just icing, you know,” Sebastian was saying when Lestrade found himself able to listen again. “Just makes it all a bit _sweeter_ , doesn’t it? Gives me a chance to really _enjoy myself_ , now I’ve got you here—“

… and Lestrade was drifting again, had lost the thin thread of the other man’s voice, but he _did_ recall hearing about his brother’s death. Some sort of long-running inmate conflict—there’d been reports, some precipitating incidents, but no named perpetrators—and had finally been found in the corner of the yard one evening. Kicked to death, the official report read.

He came back to the present at the feel of nails digging into his scalp, rough fingers twining in his hair, pulling cruelly and insistently, and his head hurt quite enough already, thanks very much. “ _Look_ at me, damn you.”

Lestrade forced his eyes open a crack; the face before him was distorted with fury, but there was a spark of something almost like joy there, too. _Because I did what he wanted,_ Lestrade thought, and his stomach gave a sickening lurch at the thought.

Lestrade unstuck his dry tongue from the roof of his mouth, managed to form his lips around the words. “I remember,” he said, swallowing against the thick feeling in his throat, “it was a… a horrible way to go, we looked into—“

None of the guards had heard anything, and if Lestrade had his private doubts about that he hadn’t been able to prove otherwise. The internal investigation hadn’t turned up anything solid, either.

“Oh for the love of— _pay attention._ You haven’t heard a thing I’ve said, have you? You really are an idiot.”

Lestrade could taste blood in his mouth, wondered when that had started. “Look,” he continued with an effort, and Sebastian spun to face him, “it’s not—“

“If you say it’s not your fault,” Sebastian interrupted, the words spilling fast and dangerous from his mouth, “you’re a dead man.”

“— not _his_ fault,” Lestrade continued evenly, inclining his head toward the other room where he knew John was leaning against the wall, but not taking his eyes from Sebastian’s face. “No reason to involve him in any of this.”

“Oh, him!” Sebastian said, his face brightening, and— bugger, was that a _laugh_? “He’s already well past involved. He has a very important job to do, don’t you, doctor?” Lestrade turned his head to see that John was simply glaring, lips pressed together. Sebastian was grinning, but his tone was flat: “Found something he could manage, didn’t I.”

John's face didn't change, but Lestrade saw the way his hand jerked, the cuff rubbing against the grate with a rasping sound.

“To be honest,” Sebastian said, turning back to Lestrade, leaning in close until he was practically whispering in his ear, “I wouldn’t worry about him too much, if I were you.”

Lestrade didn’t have any reply to that. They remained in tense silence for long minutes, neither of them moving, Sebastian’s breath hot on the side of Lestrade’s neck.

They both jumped at the chime of the mobile in Sebastian’s pocket. He stepped back ( _finally_ , Lestrade thought) and checked the display.

“You gentlemen will excuse me,” he said, almost casually, and walked away, out of Lestrade’s field of vision and up the stairs to the relative privacy of John’s bedroom.

Lestrade let out a long exhale, just to prove to himself he had space to _breathe_ again. The metallic taste of blood on his tongue made him feel ill; he turned his head and spat on the floor to clear it.

“Mrs. Hudson’s not going to be happy about that,” he heard John say, and Lestrade turned to stare at him. There was a moment of unrelieved tension that broke, finally, when John began to laugh. It was an infectious sound, and Lestrade couldn’t hold in his own answering chuckle.

When the laughter died away there was another a long pause, each of them reluctant to speak, to ask any of the questions that needed to be asked. It was John who stepped in first, his voice suddenly serious: “Reckon your head’s all right?”

Lestrade’s face twisted into a quick grimace. “It bloody _hurts_ ,” he said, hoping it came out less strained than it felt, “but I don’t think he’s knocked anything loose.”

John shifted uncomfortably. “We wait it out, then?” The man looked exhausted, Lestrade thought, and no wonder.

Lestrade nearly shrugged, thought better of it. “Unless you’ve got a better idea. The Yard knows, of course, so they’ll be working on it.”

“And Sherlock,” John added. “He and Sally are probably at each other’s throats about it as we speak.”

Lestrade gave a chuckle. “I hope someone’s selling tickets.”

They fell silent at the heavy footsteps descending the stairs. Sebastian ignored John, striding past him toward the kitchen, where he crouched down in front of Lestrade.

“Right,” he said, his voice low and oddly eager. Lestrade found himself watching his eyes to avoid looking at the knife in his hand. “That was the go-ahead. Time to start the show.”

 

* * *

 

Sherlock had been engrossed in the image on the small screen. Not enough data, not nearly enough, the audio not clear enough, and what little he could see he really didn’t like.

Mycroft was still sitting in the visitor’s chair, watching him intently. Sherlock was doing his best to ignore him.

The video cut out when the text message came through, and it wasn’t until he felt himself jump in surprise that he realised just how tense he was, how tightly he’d wrapped himself in his own muscles, and just for a moment he can’t remember what it would feel like to release them, and the whole world is white before his eyes.

Then his vision cleared and he could read the message on the screen: `Think you’re escaping and run into yourself. Longest way round is the shortest way home.`

 _Obvious_. Nearly disappointingly so, in fact. Sherlock might not waste his time with literature, but Joyce? That wasn’t literature, it was a _game_. Right up his street, in more ways than one.

“He’s waiting for something,” Mycroft said, sounding genuinely puzzled. “What’s he waiting for?”

Sherlock closed his eyes; he knew the answer to that question.

Of course, that didn’t mean he had to like it.

“He’s waiting for _me_ ,” he said, finally, not liking the sound of the words in his voice as they spilled out into the air.

There were other things he might have said, too—dangerous, sharp words, distractingly loud in his ears—but he didn’t trust them in front of an audience.

“Sherlock,” his brother was saying when he could hear again, “you cannot simply— that is, I won’t _allow_ —“

As the video feed resumed, Sherlock thought: _it’s not up to him._ Then, tamping down on the discomfort rising in his throat at the idea: _I can wait._

 _  
_

* * *

 

John was trying not to think about all the things he couldn’t do at the moment. He was, however, having a bugger of a time thinking about anything _else_.

His army training was useless: how to read his surroundings, how to use them to his advantage. There was nothing in the training about what to do when there _was_ no advantage, when the surroundings were one’s own home and still, frustratingly, yielded nothing. When one was cuffed to one’s own fireplace, blood seeping from a (call it what it was) shrapnel wound in one’s shoulder. A wound which meant, effectively, that one had been left without a useful hand. When one could not even, under duress, effectively scratch one’s own nose.

( _Sure, John_ , he thought wryly. _Keep it hypothetical._ )

There was his medical training, as well. Oddly enough, that all required the use of his hands, too, required physical proximity to the patient.

If he couldn’t use it, John wished he could just turn it off, wished he could stop thinking about the likelihood of skull fracture, concussion, the timeline for a potential bleed into Lestrade’s brain.

He was trying very hard not to listen to what was still going on in the kitchen: the rise and fall of their voices, the sound of a blade slicing through fabric and skin, the choked sound of Lestrade’s breathing.

Not a thing he could do about _those_ , either.

John thought of his service weapon, locked uselessly in his desk upstairs. No, not there— Sherlock had taken it with him. Lost at the pool, then. Either way, it might as well have been on the moon.

Christ, he was tired. Adrenaline was a wonderful, useful thing, but after a while even it wouldn’t be enough; he’d simply short-circuit, wrung out by exhaustion and tension and pain. He could feel a tremor beginning in the deep muscle of his thigh. A warning.

There was a sound from the kitchen that John recognised instantly as the cracking of bone; a shout from Lestrade. Another sick crunch, a gasped inhale. The bastard was _laughing_ , and John knew with certainty that he’d kill him. He could see it, his own hand tightening around the grip of his service weapon.

He tightened his grip on the bit of plastic in his hand instead. That, at least, he could do. For now.

 

* * *

 

Lestrade had passed the point of making any sense of it. He wasn’t sure it had ever made any sense to begin with, all twisted around in circles. Just like everything having to do with Sherlock.

But Sherlock wasn’t there. Should he have been there? Lestrade couldn’t remember, exactly; he was sure he’d known the answer just moments before, but that awareness had been smashed to bits along with the bones of his hand.

Lestrade hated knives, always had, so _of bloody course_ that was where Sebastian had started: harsh slices in the skin of his chest and arms. The blade left a burn in its wake, and Lestrade bit down on his cheek to keep himself quiet. The cuts bled freely but were shallow enough; Lestrade suspected they had been mostly for show, though that thought seemed to raise more questions than it answered.

His hand, though. That had been real anger, a furious smashing rage.

Sebastian had a glint in his eye that Lestrade didn’t like at all. He gathered his breath; he wanted to show John he was all right, or as near to it as— well. It didn’t really matter whether he was or wasn’t, he supposed.

“If you wanted me to yell,” he said, hearing the hoarseness of his own voice, “you could have just said something, saved yourself a lot of trouble.”

Lestrade had just enough time to register that the thing which had come down on his hand was a pestle— _bugger, who knows what all Sherlock’s ground with that_ —before it smashed into his cheek.

His vision faded into a swirl of grey and brown behind the bright stars of pain. It couldn’t have lasted longer than a few seconds, but it seemed like an eternity later when he managed to swim his way out of it.

He’d said something, made some noise—he could still feel the movement of the air through his throat—and John was shouting and really, it was all a bit more than he was equipped to handle just then.

A bright line of pain sparked from his head to his gut. His stomach lurched, giving him just enough warning to turn his head and avoid vomiting into his own lap. The bile burned in his throat and against the torn flesh inside his mouth and John was still shouting; it took Lestrade a long time to realise that Sebastian had gone and John was shouting his name.

“Fine, I’m fine,” he heard himself mumble. The reality was something a bit less heartening, and he thought it was probably true enough in the ways that mattered.

John was still speaking but his voice was quieter, at least. Lestrade let his head fall forward on his neck, let himself drift.

 

* * *

 

Sherlock didn’t want to watch this. He didn’t want to not-watch it, either, this dismantling of his life inside his own home. He could do little else.

He took a long breath and looked up to meet Mycroft’s eye. “I know how this ends,” he said. They were both tired, both trying to hide it. Too familiar with one another for the pretense to be effective, but making an effort anyway. Sherlock found the formality oddly reassuring; this, at least, didn’t change. Hadn’t yet, at least; might not have to, if he were clever. If he did this right.

Mycroft’s eyes narrowed almost imperceptibly while he regarded his brother. Sherlock allowed it, this once, because it was a small enough indulgence, in the balance of things.

“It doesn’t have to,” Mycroft said, his tone even and careful.

Sherlock felt the corner of his mouth quirk up. It was always going to end this way, between Moriarty and him. Their world (and it _was_ theirs, in every way that counted) wasn’t big enough for both of them.

Sherlock’s world, at that moment, was quite small indeed: a small, white hospital room, a small bed, a small screen that held the rest of it.

 

* * *

 

Sebastian hung up the phone with a feeling of annoyance that he tried to ignore.

 _Jim warned me,_ he thought, _just like he promised,_ adding: _never doubted it,_ but he was pretty sure that last part was a lie. Had to be careful with Jim, after all. Cautious. It was what he loved most about him: that mad genius, turning everything into his own little game.

 _Be nice to be let in on the rules once in a while, though._

But Sebastian wasn’t complaining. Jim had promised to get him out of there, and he had, and if he would have liked to have a bit more time with that bastard DI , he’d have something else to play with soon enough. And that would be _brilliant_ , because then Jim would be playing, too. Brought out the best in each other, he and Jim.

Nothing new there, though. _Jim was always playing_ , and he tried not to be bothered that this time he’d sidelined himself. Or sidelined Sebastian. Sebastian wasn’t sure which one of them was the key player just then.

 _Jim_ , he thought. _Always Jim_. Yes.

Sebastian was disappointed and he was excited and he took the steps down two at a time There was the short man in the living room, and _fuck_ if he didn’t look unhappy, wearing that horror show of a face _:_ staring straight ahead, lips moving silently, the hand around the detonator clenched so tightly the bones in the back of his hand showed.

“Rough night for you,” Sebastian said to him, but he was pretty sure the man hadn’t heard him, lost in his own little world.

Sudden urge to hurt him, snap him out of it, but: no, Jim had said it was time to move, and he was always right about that sort of thing. Didn’t matter with this one, anyway, whether he knew where he was or not.

Some soldier, though.

Lestrade was in the kitchen, head slumped forward. Fucking lovely surprise, that had been, bit of goddamn _serendipity_. Beautiful. The perfect gift. Jim could be so _thoughtful_ sometimes.

 _Oh, why not_. He kissed the silvering hair, avoiding the places where it was matted with blood; the man stirred but didn’t open his eyes. _Hope it bloody hurts, then_ , he thought, turning and winking at the camera he’d hidden on top of the fridge. Just for Jim; he’d cut the feed already, he’d be the only one to see.

He was mumbling something, a name. His dead wife, Sebastian realised, and indulged himself: “Long may she rot,” he whispered in the man’s ear, and moved away.

Lestrade turned his head a bit at that. He couldn’t have been that far under if he was starting to come round already, and Sebastian felt the blood rise hot in his chest, had to stuff his hands in his pockets to avoid going against instructions. He could hear Jim’s voice in his head: _no more, pet, time to go_.

A new toy soon. Jim had promised. Jim always kept his promises. Maybe not as perfect; _likely_ not, but he’d have as long as he needed to make it whatever he wanted.

 _Stupid ugly flat, anyway_. Sebastian would be glad to be well shut of it. He wondered if they’d be able to replace the wallpaper after it had been obliterated. He hoped not.

 _Serve them right if they can_ , he thought, closing the door behind him and slipping down the stairs, out onto the street.

 

* * *

 

The nurse turned to Mycroft, a note of appeal in her voice. “Just an x-ray,” she said helplessly. “It won’t take long.”

“Sherlock, if you entertain any hope of being discharged you’ll need to—“ Mycroft began. His phone buzzed; when he glanced at it, his face contorted into a frown of disapproval. “Oh dear, you’ll have to excuse me,” he said, “there’s been— well.” He cleared his throat disapprovingly. “ _Sherlock_.”

“Yes, yes, I’ll go, just give me a moment.” Sherlock waved a hand impatiently, his eyes still on the screen, on the tiny image of John’s face.

If he’d known him any less well he wouldn’t have been able to read the panic there.

He forced himself to look away, gaze shifting smoothly up to meet his brother’s. Mycroft gave a nod and a small smile to the nurse, glared at Sherlock in warning, and strode out into the hall, mobile in hand.

“Best reception’s downstairs,” she called after him, then turned back to Sherlock and said, helplessly, “I’ll just… be back with the gurney.”

It took precisely four seconds for Sherlock to recognise the opportunity for what it was.

He’d go, if it would end it; as he’d gone the night before, as they’d both known he would from the beginning.

It was easier said than done, though, and he’d barely manage to coax his shaky legs to support his weight when the door swung open again. It wasn’t the nurse but an unfamiliar orderly pushing a wheelchair who entered, and when Sherlock shot a sharp glance in his direction the man _winked_.

“Of course, you’re here to— oh, _obvious,_ ” Sherlock said.

The orderly took the pink mobile from him and tucked it back into the pocket of Sherlock’s coat, resting on the chair. Sherlock reached out a hand for it, instinctively.

“Leave it,” the orderly said cheerfully. “We should get a move on, though. He’s waiting.”

Sherlock pressed his lips together, gave a tight nod, and allowed himself to be taken out of the room and down the hall to the lift.

 

* * *

 

Lestrade’s came back to a hazy consciousness at the sound of John’s voice.

“No, no, don’t, _stop_ ,” he was saying, over and over again, and Lestrade felt a surge of disorienting rage that Moran had apparently grown bored of him and moved on while he was out.

Sharp pain at his wrists where the cable ties were cutting into the skin. Lestrade pulled away instinctively and ineffectually, peeled his eyes open.

 _Bomb squad,_ he thought numbly, not recognising the face on the other side of the mask.

There was another suited figure crouching over by John, trying to take the small box out of his cuffed hand. John looked positively _murderous_ , brows drawn close over eyes that sparked with rage.

“John,” he heard himself say, his voice rasping up and out of his chest, “ _John_ , it’s all right.”

John turned so he was looking right at Lestrade, and it was a long moment before his eyes registered any recognition. Then John took a long inhale and seemed to deflate, melting back against the wall.

“Fine,” he said finally, his own voice hoarse and low with strain, “fine, take it, just be _careful_ —“ and then everything seemed to be happening in slow motion: the officer reaching out to take the detonator, John relaxing his grip, and the infinite moment of absolute disaster as the box slipped from the gloved hands and fell to the floor.

Nobody breathed as it landed, bounced once, rocked onto its side, was still.

Finally, John spoke. “Well, that was a bit anticlimactic, don’t you think? Blown all out of proportion,” and it seemed to break something in the air and everyone began to _move_ , a flurry of activity now that the danger was over.

 _A fake, a bloody fake_ , Lestrade thought, and couldn’t decide whether he was angry or relieved so he laughed, and John was laughing, too. They couldn’t stop themselves, long hours of tension shaking outward from their ribs through sore muscles.

Then there were more paramedics—real ones this time, Lestrade was pretty sure, and judging by the expression on his face John seemed to be having the same thought—and Donovan appeared in his field of vision, a radio in her hand.

“Sally—“ he began, but she barely had a glance for him.

“There’s been another blast,” she was saying to someone Lestrade couldn’t see, “at the hospital,” and through the silence that fell over the room Lestrade could hear the far-off wail of sirens.

 

* * *

 

They were in the lift when Sherlock felt the jolt of the explosion. The lift shook on its cables but didn’t stop, and when Sherlock looked back over his shoulder the orderly was looking straight ahead, his face blank.

When the doors opened, everything was a flurry of panic: shouting and running, emergency lights flickering on and off. Sherlock glanced around for Mycroft, but couldn’t pick him out of the chaos.

No one looked twice at the orderly who was pushing a patient in a wheelchair out the doors and into a waiting van.

 

* * *

 

The day of the funeral was clear and unseasonably cold for the beginning of summer. Lestrade shoved his fists into his pockets, the cast on one hand a weighty reminder, and pulled his jacket tighter across his chest.

John gave him a look that might almost have passed for a smile, leaning on his cane. “You know, it’s not exactly the first time I’ve been to one of these where there’s no one in the coffin, but… well, here. In London.” He rubbed his neck, swallowed. “You don’t expect that.”

“No.”

There was a fair crowd there, Lestrade was glad to see. Most of the squad, those who’d worked with Sherlock over the years. A few unfamiliar faces that might have been friends or former clients. His brother, of course, standing far back and looking more composed than he had any right being.

Just an empty coffin but they all stood well back from the grave, leaving a phantom space for a phantom body.

The investigation had eventually revealed that the bomb itself had been in Sherlock’s room, or just below it. It had obliterated the space, the adjacent rooms and their occupants simply destroyed, a pile of twisted metal and mixed-up scraps of DNA. Given enough distractions, all bags of white powder start to look alike, and it was hardly either of their fault that they hadn’t recognised the fake Semtex in the flat. When Lestrade expressed as much to John, though, John had just gone silent and ground his teeth through a polite smile. Lestrade hadn’t brought it up again.

He and John had ended up in A&E across town in time to see the first casualties start to roll in, and it was all backwards and _wrong_ and he was a bit ashamed to admit that they hadn’t even though of Sherlock. Not at first, at least. Not until that brother of his called; then it had all fallen into place. _Obvious_ , Lestrade thought, and could almost hear it in Sherlock’s voice.

“He would have hated this,” John whispered to him as the vicar began to read. Generic platitudes, mostly, unobjectionable and formal; an acknowledgement of the utter inadequacy of words to sum up such a frantic beehive of a mind.

“Obviously,” Lestrade whispered back.

“Dull.”

They shared a small smile. John looked tired, _sounded_ tired, and Lestrade doubted he’d been sleeping much the last few weeks. He certainly hadn’t, and he wasn’t the one who— well. Things were less complicated on his end altogether.

They waited. The vicar’s voice floating around them, just background noise. It seemed distant, unconnected to the scene before them, unreal.

When she finally closed her book and began to walk away, Lestrade turned to John and offered, helplessly, the only thing he could think to say: “He was a good man.”

John gave a short, pained laugh and turned away.

“He might have been, given time.”

 


End file.
